Dr. David Seligson's research focuses on tissue arrays as a research platform to help link cancer gene expression directly to clinical issues in patient care.

The "tissue array" is a dense compilation of small samplings of hundreds to thousands of solid tissues, such as human tumors. The tissues are embedded in paraffin, and therefore histologic slides may be prepared in order to do experiments examining DNA, RNA, or most typically, specific proteins of interest. Once arrays are constructed and linked to rich clinicopathologic datasets, they may be used to link the expressions of the biomolecules to various issues pertinent to both basic science and to patient care. A group of expression signatures may be used to find "molecular profiles" of cancer that can be used to improve patient prognostication, to help tailor treatment regimens and to find new therapeutic drug targets. Seligson and his colleagues are currently using this technique in the study of cancers of the prostate, kidney, bladder, lung, breast, uterus and brain.